


We Know The Way

by VolxdoSioda



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, Magic AU, Sentient Cities, fic born around the idea of urban magic, scout is a good kid, their chosen hearts and voices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Boston hasn’t had an “official” witch guiding it in generations; the counsel says the city is too wild now, that it won’t accept outside interference. It’s not quite a lie, but not quite the truth either.After all, who would ever believe a ten year old capable of stealing the heart of Boston?(Magic!AU)





	We Know The Way

This is how a city is born.

From blood and strife and travel and wars; from one person deciding one certain spot will be their home, that this is where their legacy will begin. It isn’t in the walls, or the stonework, or the routes laid down. A city is not born from a mere whim to start fresh.

It is born from courage, and suffering, and a willingness to protect others. To offer shelter where Nature would provide none. To stand in the face of the coming storms, and scream  _ I am not afraid of you,  _ and make it true. To give what others need even at the cost of one’s own resources.

_ That  _ is how a city is born. It is how the empires rise, the great towering monoliths that never truly fade or die, merely go quiet for a time. 

It is how Boston, Massachusetts came to be. Because someone said  _ I will give man what man does not yet have,  _ and they did not break that promise. And so Boston lived and thrived, and grew so large that people of all sorts could flock and live in comfort. 

When the Australium was discovered, the world thought it had found its pearl in the oyster. It’s proverbial fountain of youth. 

That was before they realized there was magic in the world, and the people began to find the hearts of the cities. Places where the desires of the people met the age of the cities, and something like sentience spiraled out to fill the void.

Australium still took the world by storm, but so did magic. And sometimes they weren’t mutually exclusive. Magic and Australium overlapped in spots, and from that came the leylines, the hotspots where power could flow freely. The leylines would inevitably all lead to the heart of a city - it only took people twelve years to figure that out. 

But once they did, and once they realized just what it meant when someone was accepted by the cities to be a Voice for the Heart - that’s when things  _ really  _ kicked off.

 

_**0-0-0-0-0-0** _

 

_ “…and in an official statement from the Council, Boston has now been declared a Wild City. The reasoning for the decision goes back to the 24th of January, when officials attempted to open up communications between the Voice candidate and Boston herself. Unfortunately, since that point no news has been heard, though Boston continues to thrive and function without issue.  _

_ “When questioned on the matter of whether or not Boston could be sentient to some degree, council member Raquel Lawrence went on official transcript as saying: _

_ "We have reason to assume so, given that the city herself has refused a Voice for nearly ten years running now, but has maintained a constant state of peace. While we will watch for changes in the coming days, we fully commit ourselves to the city of Boston and her people; if she does not need a Voice to act as her guide, then we relinquish our control back to her, and wish her all the best.” _

Jeremy scoffs as he takes another bite of his cereal. “Bout time you numbskulls declared it,” he mutters. It’s still reasonably early in the house; his Ma and brothers are still upstairs sound asleep, so he’s taking care to be quiet. “Took you nearly ten years to realize she ain’t looking for no new egghead to run her. And they call  _ me  _ stubborn.” He takes another bite, shaking his head.

_ “The decision has naturally been met by some controversy from modern-day mages who insist that even old as the city is, genii loci is not a natural phenomenon by any means, and people should not be illusioned to think as such. Leader of the F.C.A [Free City Act] Alain Leek said in an official interview: _

_ “The people have been told throughout a majority of their lives that cities have spirits, and they need Voices and Hands to guide the city to the correct path. At this point I would like to think people smart enough to realize this is not true; there are no grand spirits of the city themselves speaking through people. This is merely greed and capitalism at its finest as politicians put their people in positions of power. Instead of voting now, we listen to the supposed ‘voice of the city’ and let them do what they please.” _

If he rolls his eyes any harder, they’re probably going to pop out of his head. “Yeah, because a Level Nine earthquake that’s taken down three cities and torn a hole in the ground the size of the Grand Canyon just  _ feels  _ like stopping as soon as it gets in Boston’s turf. M’sure that had absolutely  _ nothing  _ to do with a city having whims a’ her own.” 

He’s still got the scars from that particular night too; the runes he’d put on himself to shoulder as much as he could of the incoming power had seared themselves deep beneath his skin. On rough days when his barriers are low, they look like old tattoos, faded and worn on his upper back and shoulders. Fortunately, days that are rough enough to drop his barriers are very rare indeed, or he’d probably have his Ma asking a lot more questions.

_ “In an opposing statement, leader of the V.F.C. [Voice For Cities] Debra Cunning has gone on official register as stating: _

_ “It has been proven through trial and error that the cities of today remember everything from the time of their creation to the time of their unmaking. More to the point, while Mr. Leek claims a city does not truly have a voice, there is no way for him to discredit a city’s Heart. The Heart of Boston exists, people have  _ **_seen_ ** _ it in action, and more to the point the existence of the Heart is what allows the leylines we draw our power from to function. So unless Mr. Leek wants to claim that all of this is one giant hoax, and that magic herself is not real, he has no horse in this race. If the city wishes to remain wild and unVoiced, then we will honor her and keep each other safe.” _

Jeremy scowls. Debra Cunning is one of the witches Boston hates with a passion. Despite the young woman’s ‘open-minded’ stance on the matter of Boston remaining free, there have been many attempts by her and the V.F.C over the years to find Boston’s Heart, and secure herself a place as the Voice, even as she continues to parade the idea of Boston remaining ‘free of clouded judgement’. She’s a hypocrite of the worst sort.

Still, in a contest between her and Alain Leek, he’ll take her any day.  _ Better the enemy you know, as Spy likes to claim.  _ He gulps the milk down and goes to wash the bowl. It’ll be a cold day in hell before any one of them gets to set a single foot inside Boston’s Inner Gates, but they don’t know that either. He scrubs and rinses, grimacing at the stack of plates his brothers ignored last night at dinner. Picking one up, he whistles a thoughtless tune as he fills the sink full of soap, letting the gunk seep and soften.

From the window, he can see the skyline starting to turn golden pink with the first rays of morning. The shops will start to open in a couple hours, and traffic will kick up as people start to go to work or school, waking up to start their new day.

Soon his phone will ring, and Pauling will give him the coordinates for today’s fight, and he and the others mercs will head there. Jeremy will become Scout for a time, fighting in a uniform that feels familiar and comforting for all it’s own reasons. Out there, he can let the violence run its course, and not have to hide himself away behind fake smiles and the day-to-day monotony of being polite. 

He can stop pretending that being Boston’s Heart means he must be gentle, that he can’t love his people and bash heads in at the same time. That he can’t shelter them with one hand as he destroys those who would harm his people with the other. That’s one thing Team Fortress has been excellent about teaching him. That violence, in some cases, is the  _ perfect  _ answer.

In the meantime however, Jeremy watches the sun rise over his city and washes grime off of dishes, the burn of water turned on as hot as it will go soothing against the too-cold bite of the house.

 

**_0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0_ **

 

He still remembers his first encounter with the Heart, before Boston had decided he was worthy of holding it. A stumble across the Commons resulted in him finding it, in that little gap between spaces where the world works by different rules. Where something that is not  _ can be,  _ and something that can be  _ won’t  _ simply because of fair trade.

A less-than-tangible substance, which is the only reason he didn’t know what it was at the time. It certainly isn’t a literal heart. Rather, it’s a presence. A feeling. Every Voice speaks of the presence feeling different, because the cities are all different. For Scout, the most prominent thing he recalls is the raven’s-sharp curiosity he’d felt passing through the vast empty gates of that place, hearing the murmuring of voices but seeing no people, sensing great change flowing around him but never actually witnessing the change until much, much later, when he learned where to look to find what he felt happening.

A lot of politicians like the glorify the process of becoming a Voice, encountering the Heart of a city. But what they don’t realize and won’t ever unless they do it themselves is that by becoming the Voice, you see  _ everything.  _ And you feel it like it was your own flesh and blood being scored, being taken to task, hit, beaten, raped, and left in the alleyways to die. There is no chance of withholding compassion, of going back out into the world with anything less than war on your mind. To take up the mantle of the Voice is to take up the inherent violence the position requires, and use it to better the lives that have been robbed.

Scout would never have thought of carving the runes onto his skin - ancient old things, twisted and powerful - before he was chosen. Would never have been willing to sacrifice himself to keep Boston alive just that much longer. But in the ten years he’s had to learn how to run the joint since his inauguration, he likes to think he’s done a good job. Poverty’s down, homelessness stopped, a lot of the jobs have come back. 

Most of them are factory jobs, but a job is still a job if it provides pay. And Scout’s made damn sure the health code regulations are being followed. He’s aware of  _ everything  _ all at once - it’s like he has a crowd of people hunched over his shoulders at all hours, whispering to him as he moves from place to place. If he ignores it, it fades into the background as white noise, but if he focuses he can bring it forward and even separate the threads of information out, find out what he wants about certain areas fast without sacrificing time for it. 

Of course, even as strong as he is, he can only influence. He can’t change things unless the people want it to change - the good news is that most of them do. Still, there have been some disappointments over the years. Some tears and grief as he realizes he can’t fix it all. He likes to think he’s come to terms with it, the same way he’s come to terms with not having a dad or working for Team Fortress. He’s coping as best he can, swaying the tides in the favor of those who need it but leaving the actual work up to the people themselves.

It’s why he hates politicians as much as he does. They could do  _ so much good  _ with the influence they pull, but instead they’d rather squabble over the small things. Act offended and cast blame, play head games they don’t need. Waste precious time and resources, and then act like it wasn’t their plan all along. Boston hates them too, hates those who won’t take care of what they built. 

But she loves her people more. And so with every disaster that rises, she and Scout fight to combat it, fight to give their people better lives. It’s an eternally uphill battle, but Scout wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
